


fake empire of my hollow heart

by DisasterSoundtrack



Category: Bandom, Waterparks (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Dystopia, M/M, Near Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:40:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21660319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisasterSoundtrack/pseuds/DisasterSoundtrack
Summary: In the year 2080, you can't show that you care about anyone or anything. Each time you do, you're proving to Them that you're vulnerable. And you don't wanna be vulnerable. You don't want what you love to be used against you. You don't want to lose the little you have.Jawn has no plan for the present. Awsten has no future.Their story starts underneath pink neon lights. Someday, it will end there, too.
Relationships: Awsten Knight/Jawn Rocha
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	fake empire of my hollow heart

**Author's Note:**

> playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6gAFXdhAZH9hb1vsnMpeoL?si=Ed26DUUxSi2NsDwI_37IPQ%22)
> 
> if I could, I'd trade my heart for a second brain

In the year 2080, you can't show that you care about anyone or anything. Each time you do, you're proving to Them that you're vulnerable. And you don't wanna be vulnerable. You don't want what you love to be used against you.

You don't want to lose the little you have. 

In the year 2080, you're all alone even when you're not. People don't last. Buying drugs is easier than buying fresh fruit. Water is practically poison. The sky is always grey and if the weather changes, it goes from bad to worse.

So you escape into a city, and the city is endless, spreading over the horizon and then further, wherever you're looking at it from. The city is an enemy and a friend all at once. It tempts you with lights and promises of crazy entertainment, but hides desperate people with deadly weapons behind every other corner. It gives you a chance at life, but can take it all away at any moment.

Your entire life is a long parade of nights filled with false hopes and mornings filled with disillusion.

You like the mornings more.

*

Jawn hears the shutter click thousands of times a day. If his life was one sound played on loop, it would be the shutter.

In today's shitty world, you don't have much of a choice if you want to make money - you gotta do whatever shitty jobs are available just so you can survive. And Jawn has gotten really good at surviving over the years. So he listens to the shutter go off again as he takes a photo of some politician's daughter sitting in the lap of someone who's definitely not her husband, out on a bar patio across the street, makes sure he caught her face, takes another one. Days and nights go by, the money he receives letting him live a life that's not at all bad, and his motorcycle carries him through the streets of the half-abandoned city, water from the puddles splashing the legs of his jeans.

As long as he's taking the pictures, he needs to forget his morals. Following a moral code is a luxury few can afford these days. 

The government's corrupt. The rich have eaten the poor. No, being a paparazzo was never the height of Jawn's dreams, but he has the talent, the skills and the equipment.

At first, there's a background noise in his head every time he tries to fall asleep. _You're ruining people's lives,_ it screams. The longer he works, the quieter the noise becomes. It's just a hum at this point. 

In an effort to not see the photos he provided his clients with, he stops reading the news. The side effect is not knowing what the hell is going on with the world.

Maybe that's for the best.

*

Awsten is flooded with bright pink lights the first time Jawn ever sees him. He's wiping shot glasses behind a strip club bar, lazily and without much interest observing the girls twirling on poles.

“What's your poison?” Jawn asks him, not really interested in the girls either, catching the bartender's attention.

“You are,” the young man answers immediately, giving him a once-over, voice smooth like a lullaby. Despite that open declaration, he pulls out a bottle of pink gin and fills up four shot glasses. “What's yours, and why is it me?”

Jawn's impressed. The boy's nothing like he'd expect, like nothing and no one he's ever seen, leaning down on his elbows to look Jawn in the eyes with a mysterious smile. His hair is some crazy color Jawn can't quite identify due to the lighting. There's softness to him, but it's masked by confidence and flirtiness as he reaches for one of the shot glasses. 

His eyelashes are impossibly long.

“On three?” asks the bartender. Jawn picks up a glass of his own. “One, two, three.”

Jawn watches the boy swallow the liquid instead of drinking himself. He can't help it - the sight's mesmerising. As soon as he's caught staring though, he downs his glass like he was supposed to. It tastes sweet and bitter all at once. The bartender smirks at him.

“The name's Awsten, by the way. I'm off in five minutes but I can be off now,” the boy is twirling Jawn's hair in his fingers now, his hot breath all over Jawn's face as he's leaning very, very close. His lips look like they'd be great to kiss. Jawn wants to make sure.

“Let's be off now, then.”

“We should finish our drinks first. Also, you have to pay for those.”

Jawn swallows down the second shot of the bittersweet pink liquid, tasting it on Awsten's lips two minutes later when they kiss for the first time in the back alley behind the bar. It turns out Awsten's hair is actually neon green, soft and smooth to the touch, the way he kisses hungry and impatient. Jawn can definitely roll with it, especially when Awsten's hands reach to unzip his pants and go straight for his dick. 

Jawn has a fleeting thought about the dingy back alley they're in, but it's quickly replaced by the very real image of Awsten pressed against him, gentle yet slutty, expertly good with his fingers, already hard when Jawn reaches to start pleasuring him too. 

Logically, Jawn knows he shouldn’t be losing his mind over a simple handjob. This knowledge doesn't change how life-altering this feels. It's something about the way Awsten moves, fluid and fully in the moment like nothing outside the two of them exists right now, his kisses sweet and sometimes biting, the human embodiment of pink gin. 

It's a feeling unlike any other.

Jawn tries to match Awsten’s pace but he’s distracted, everything that’s going on way too easy and falling into place just a little too neatly. _He’s a hooker,_ Jawn realizes as Awsten traces the edge of his jaw with his tongue, _not that there’s anything wrong with that. But he’s gonna charge me. I can’t afford this._

Possibly having fallen into a very dangerous, very expensive trap, Jawn still melts under Awsten’s touch, half-pressed against the wall, picking up speed as the boy he’s got in his arms starts whimpering. He can’t back out now, nor does he want to. He opens his eyes to see Awsten looking straight at him, lost in pleasure, vulnerable and beautiful, and the wave of his own orgasm hits Jawn like a thunder as Awsten folds into him, shivering, gasping.

When they’re both done, collected again, breathing like normal people are supposed to, but still probably not thinking straight, Jawn brings the other man close once more to kiss him slowly and thoroughly before leaving. 

No one mentions money. Jawn’s feeling a little shitty for assuming. 

“Where are you going?” Awsten asks, his eyes bright and pleading, something about his fragile frame in dissonance with his self-assured movements and tone of voice from before. He’s a marvel in all colors of the rainbow, here under the blinding lights of a street lamp, asking Jawn questions that are loaded on both ends.

“I don't know yet.” Jawn doesn’t really want to go anywhere. He wants to move into this bar, this back alley, this life with this mysterious boy.

“Please take me with you.”

Jawn feels like he's making a decision of life importance and grave consequences at this very moment. He knows things don't just happen like that, except for when they do, and it never ends well.

But he doesn’t need things to end well. He doesn’t need things to end at all.

“I'd love that,” he says despite himself and drives Awsten through the city on his motorcycle, the man stuck to his back the whole time, no helmet, no proper jacket either, not a burden though, more like a precious gift that Jawn stole from someone else. Someone who's gonna come beat him up in the dead of the night. 

No one comes though. Not ever.

He takes Awsten to the riverbank first, and they make out on a bench for half an hour, staring at where the stars would be if they could still see them, if it hadn't been for the pollution. Jawn holds the neon-haired boy in his lap, thinking about all the possibilities and threats he brings along, and the more he thinks, the more he concludes it’s time to run away screaming.

So after that, naturally, he takes Awsten home. They eat a late dinner, drink a beer each and Awsten falls asleep curled on Jawn's couch, but wakes up in his bed later.

Awsten doesn't come back to his own apartment anymore, other than to get his stuff. 

*

Jawn likes to think he's not dead inside. He's a little desensitized because that's an easier way to live, especially after the life he's had so far, but his ability to feel emotions is not completely gone. 

He can’t be dead inside, because the feelings that rapidly awaken in him as he spends day after day with Awsten burn him from the inside.

The way Awsten makes love is world-stopping. He’s loud and relentless, impossible to be predicted, and Jawn’s constantly thrown back to that back alley handjob, the intensity of it never quite leaving his head. The first time they fuck is just the next night after that. 

It's a surprise to neither of them. Awsten's adamant to say Jawn's the best he's ever had, but Jawn knows these words to always be a lie. Still, he can feel entire continents shifting underneath him when Awsten places his hand on his cheek and locks gaze with him in the most heated moment. 

Seemingly untainted by the life he's lived so far, that included everything from selling illegal medicine to breaking up bar fights, in bed Awsten's filled with boundless trust, uninhibited in any way, always ready for more even if Jawn has nothing more to give. Jawn tries to be more like him, ignoring how much of an uphill climb it turns out to be. He'll do it for Awsten or die trying, there's nothing to lose anyway.

So he trusts. For the first time in his adult life, he places his faith in someone other than himself.

*

“Do you love me?” Awsten asks, even if it’s only been a week or two, days and nights blending together, exhaustion from never sleeping anymore hitting Jawn with the grey lights of the early morning, sirens roaring somewhere in the distance. Awsten’s naked, thin and pale and draped over Jawn who’s naked too, the neon-haired boy looking at him like the answer can’t hurt him, whatever it’s gonna be. 

“I love you,” Jawn answers, the words smooth and easy on his tongue, and realizes he means it from the very roots of his soul. 

He is not afraid either.

“That’s good,” Awsten curls up and starts speaking his words into the skin over Jawn’s collarbones. “I was going to say I love you, but didn’t want to jump the gun.”

“So you made me say it first? That doesn’t seem fair,” Jawn chuckles, wrapping his arms tighter around Awsten.

“I guess it doesn’t matter who says it first if we mean it. And I mean it.”

“I mean it too.”

It feels like sand under his eyes to stay awake but Jawn still keeps kissing Awsten, the other man’s long eyelashes brushing his cheeks, hands fisted into sheets, until he can’t tell reality from dreams anymore.

*

Jawn’s loved people before, but they all died.

Some of them killed themselves before the world got them. Those were the lucky ones. The others he doesn’t really like to think about. Some of the images are still too vivid in his mind.

Awsten is the first one to stick around.

Awsten is the first one to take whatever’s given to him, the insane world that they live in, and thrive within it. Make it his own. 

He steals neon signs off the streets and hangs them in their apartment, the dull blue light saying, ironically, GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS, putting Jawn to sleep every night. 

Awsten scams pills off people in line for clubs, and even if he only manages to get one, he always shares with Jawn so they can trip together. Awsten’s fueled by dodgy ramen and the chaos that surrounds him.

Awsten tells Jawn enough stories to make him sound like a different person each day. But it's actually all him, he lived through it all and even though the scars on his soul carry their own scars, his body's remained flawlessly perfect.

Jawn’s loved people before, but he’s never loved like _that_ , reckless, all-consuming, certain.

*

They are children of a revolution that never was. 

Their childhoods have been filled with tales of blood and gore, told by their parents before they died of mysterious diseases at the age of 40 or less. They carry a vague memory of the past way of living, unsure if it’s something real or just a dream, implanted upon their souls by previous generations’ nostalgia. 

However much they struggle, they still get to live lives subdued and normal, incomparably easier than the people before them. Awsten claims his neighbors from when he was a child had a dog. Jawn has never seen a dog, and frankly the idea of a loyal animal companion you can keep at home by your side all the time is so wonderful it overwhelms him. 

They were born with the burden of failure. First generation fully aware that things can’t be changed, at least not on a bigger scale.

So they change small. At least Awsten does.

Having tried online camming before, he makes a decision to expand it into a non-sexual variety. People crave all kinds of human contact, so Awsten sits in front of his computer every other night, playing his guitar, singing happy-sounding songs, joking with Jawn (who’s always offscreen), sometimes just telling the seemingly unreal yet true tales of his life, and money starts flooding in. 

In another life, he would have been a popstar. 

They’ve replaced them all with holograms now. 

*

They get married within months because life’s too short not to, and also because they really love each other, so why the hell not. Jawn's never been married before and he's not entirely sure of what exactly comes along with it, except that they will be legally allowed to see each other when they end up in a hospital, and legally obligated to organize a funeral when the other dies. He realizes he doesn't feel any different looking at Awsten now that there's golden rings on their fingers. 

Awsten's happy though. He tells the story of finding the rings in a pawn shop and getting them for next to nothing, even though Jawn's already heard it. He could hear Awsten's stories ten times over and still ask for more, just to drink in his voice and the way his words fit together. His eyes shine more that day and it's not because he's on something. 

It's probably their most joyful day together so far. They go out for drinks and Awsten refuses to let go of Jawn's hand for even a second. 

“I used to have this ritual,” he confesses, Jawn's drink tasting of nothing but sugar and blueberries, perhaps appropriate for the occasion. “Every night when life was too much and I played with the idea of offing myself, I'd be allowed to tell myself one lie, you know, just to keep myself going until morning. And the lie was always the same.”

“What was the lie?” Jawn inquires, surprised that Awsten managed to keep this piece of trivia secret for so long.

“That things will get better. That something will change. Just something. Anything really. I didn't quite expect a prince on a white stallion to come and save me. Much less a sexy prince on a motorcycle,” Awsten winks, making Jawn laugh. “No, seriously. I was living in a claustrophobic room above a noisy bar, with paint peeling off walls and a window I couldn’t open, everyone I knew was either dead or a druggie and my days were just a string of panic attacks. Look at me now. I’m making money. I’m in love. I’m fucking _married._ ”

Good things don’t happen to good people anymore. Not in their world, not in their city. Jawn and Awsten aren’t necessarily good, but they’re not bad either, forever existing in the grey area between darkness and light, and maybe this is the best that’s going to happen to them: finding each other. 

If there’s nothing else out there for him, Jawn doesn’t care. What he’s got is enough. 

The windows are wide open and it’s still bright outside when they make love later, touching each other with their freshly-ringed hands. To Jawn, this is more meaningful than the state-approved vows they said earlier. To Jawn, Awsten sticking to him with his entire body and whispering quiet encouragements is more meaningful than signing some kind of paper and going on record about their everlasting commitment. 

He looks at their rings as their left hands meet somewhere across the sheets and he understands eternal love like never before.

*

Inhibitions are gone when you're tripping. Even if, like Jawn, you firmly claim you can't dance and refuse to do it sober, it's a whole other thing when you're not. 

The pills are colorful and harmless-looking; Awsten's palm is stained a watery shade of blue from the powder coating them. He places one on his tongue, waits for Jawn to do the same, they both swallow and then kiss for a while just to pass the time, not paying any mind to the people passing by on the street, the people not paying any mind to them either.

The pills still haven't kicked in when they enter the club, an underground mass of sweaty bodies, free entry because it's a shit place full of sex workers trying to impose their services upon everyone who seems alone even for the shortest while. Jawn and Awsten are not targeted because they're obviously not alone, refusing to separate for as much as a second, hands held, joined at the hip. 

Jawn feels that if he loses sight of Awsten in this cesspool, he'll never see him again. His husband will be lost to the lustful crowd, eaten alive, drowned in waves of mind-numbing electronic music. Jawn obviously can't let that happen.

“Hey babe?” Jawn’s is reading Awsten’s lips more than actually hearing what he’s saying, before the other man pulls him close to say whatever he wants to say right in his ear. “Did I ever tell you how much you turn me on?”

They don’t need drugs for that. 

Awsten’s wearing a tank top, so Jawn gets to touch his surprisingly muscular arms, running his fingers down the warm skin to where Awsten’s placed his hands on Jawn’s hips. He kisses his husband, trying to drink in this moment, something that is never going to happen again, not in the exact same way, with the same sounds, colors and flavors, the same feelings running through his veins. His life used to be the same couple of days playing on repeat, but ever since Awsten showed up, it’s more of a train that’s been off the rails for months now. He’s still steering it, but was he ever really in control? 

Awsten chases Jawn’s tongue with the tip of his own. They’re wrapped in each other so much they start swaying, held upright only by the mass of bodies on the dancefloor around them. The music is as much a deafening sound as it as a vibration, starting in the soles of their feet and ending at the tips of their hair. 

When Jawn realizes every color has a very distinct smell, he knows the drugs have finally kicked in. Awsten's hair, even though it's still bright green, smells like strawberries. They dance, beautiful and young and just as stupid as they were yesterday, just as stupid as they’re gonna be tomorrow. Everything is amplified now, the roar in Jawn’s ears nearly frightening, the heat of Awsten’s body and so many other bodies on his nearly burning, the club a labyrinth, a maze with no way out. Awsten’s arms are around his neck like an afterthought and the boy’s face is made of stars and stars only. 

Life’s _so much_. So gorgeous, so cruel, so overwhelming, so painful. How do people ever handle it? 

Static roars like feedback from a speaker.

By the end of the night, he can only hear static. He’s sitting on a streetside curb, wearing the icy cold air around his naked arms like a coat, everything smelling of gasoline and despair, Awsten practically pouring water down his throat.

(Fade to black, sudden)

*

There has never been an apocalypse. There was no nuclear explosion, no world war, no all-consuming flood. There’s only ever been a slow, painful process of societal deterioration, small scale civil unrest ruthlessly squashed before it could develop into anything bigger, the climate changing, the pollution spreading.

There was no turning point. Not a date you can refer to. 

Not much to remember the old world by, either.

There’s just the illusion that somewhere, somehow, the old world still exists.

It’s just that not everyone gets to see it.

*

Awsten finds out through the grapevine. The camming community has a very wide, tight-knit network, bound together by an unexplainable, untold kind of loyalty, and you can acquire a lot of not necessarily legal things through it. You can acquire a lot of information, too. Whether you choose to believe any of it is your choice.

“The next event is this Saturday just a couple blocks from here and they’re still looking for participants,” Awsten tells Jawn, batting his eyelashes. Jawn never would have imagined spending his morning trying to convince Awsten not to participate in an underground MMA fight, but life never stops surprising him.

“There’s no way,” he says, lacing up his motorcycle boots, Awsten looking up at him from the floor where he’s seated, determined to convince Jawn this idea is anywhere near good. “That’s way too fucking dangerous. Also since when can you fight?”

Awsten grins confidently. “It’s more like wrestling, you know. It’s about the performance. And I can perform like no other, can’t I?”

Jawn is unable to disagree. He can’t say no to the idea, because Awsten’s life is Awsten’s to do whatever he pleases with, but that doesn’t mean he likes it even one bit. “I still think it’s too risky. And for what?”

When Awsten names the price, Jawn’s jaw drops a little.

“Baby, we - we have money.” He tries to persuade them both, but he knows he’s already lost the battle, and the war as well.

“Well, what about our road trip? We still need a car for that, don’t we?”

Awsten, like no one before, excels at pushing exactly the right buttons. They both share this reckless, dangerous dream of roadtripping outside of the city and seeing what's out there. Neither of them ever got that opportunity, neither know whether something outside of the city even exists. Maybe it’s just the city, from horizon to horizon, endless, dirty, all-encompassing. Maybe there’s nothing for them to find. That doesn't change the fact that lately they’ve been spending hours theorizing instead of sleeping, getting each other way too excited for the idea.

Awsten's correct. They need money.

Jawn finishes lacing up his boots, ready to leave for work, and pulls Awsten close, kissing his forehead. Heavy weight of fear settles in his stomach. He doesn’t feel fear often anymore. “Better practice that right hook then, huh? And pick a good outfit.”

*

The streets are wet, always wet, neon lights reflecting off them. It’s an abstract painting come to life, out of focus, fluid, taking the shape and form of whatever you want it to be.

For Jawn, it takes shape of a determined kind of love.

Awsten’s in the back of the motorcycle, arms tightly wrapped around Jawn’s waist, a proper leather jacket on, but still no helmet, even if Jawn offered him his own multiple times. Awsten’s always said no. A reckless life is the only kind of life he knows.

And Jawn’s not an adrenaline junkie, he’s never been, but he appreciates a good thrill where he can get it. Being around Awsten amplifies that desire, so he drives his machine just on the very edge of safety, taking turns that send his heart flying to his throat, braking in a way that makes Awsten gasp or giggle excitedly, childish and wide-eyed, Jawn wishing he could see his face in those moments. But he can’t, so he settles for the sound and the feeling of Awsten pressed against him. 

The night’s blinking red and gold upon them when they pull up in the back of the shady venue where the MMA event is supposed to take place.

“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” Jawn makes a point of repeating, but Awsten shrugs it off.

“We’ll be out of here in two hours. We take the money, get some good food, fuck and start planning our trip properly. Sound good?”

“What if we don’t get the money?”

Awsten jumps off the bike, trying to fix his wind-wrecked hair. “Then we’ll be out of here in two hours, get some good food, fuck and go to sleep like nothing ever happened.”

But something _would_ have happened.

The music inside is loud, and it’s live. Awsten’s eyes light up like from here to the nearby galaxy.

There’s people on a stage, three of them behind laptops, sure, but one’s holding an electric guitar and one’s singing to the mic. They’re playing live music to an audience of people, a noisy kind of electronically-filtered rock. They would be sentenced to an eternity in prison if someone were to find out. Jawn has to literally pull Awsten away from the stage to have him focus again.

Awsten’s given a fluorescent pink robe. It completes his outfit of silky black boxer shorts, old battered Vans and a black, glass rosary on his neck, a family heirloom, a memory of relatives that are no longer there. A good luck charm of sorts. His hair is still fucked up from the motorcycle ride and Jawn loves him, loves him so much his heart can’t quite contain it most of the time.

“Do you trust me?”

Jawn shouldn't; he never, ever should have, and it’s never been clearer than in this very moment. Awsten is a force of nature and you can't predict those. They come along, swoop you up, spit you out, steal your belongings and kill your entire family. 

This is going to get them in trouble.

Jawn breathes in and then finally replies, “I trust you,” cradling Awsten's face in his palms, a little hesitant to kiss him in front of all these people, to show their vulnerability so openly in a place where they're not protected by the anonymity of a drugged out crowd, but he kisses him anyway. The bright fluorescent light is making Awsten sweat. The last thing he does is slide off his wedding ring and push it into Jawn’s hand for safekeeping.

Jawn's really nervous.

Awsten climbs through the ropes onto the ring. The crowd, hungry and restless, roars. The lights change, now focused on the current competitors. Awsten's opponent is big, much bigger than him, sturdy and beefy, glistening muscles where Awsten's just skin and bones. _Beefy means slow_ , Jawn remembers Awsten saying one sleepless night or another. _I'm lightning fast, beefy's got nothing on me._

A bell sounds off. There's a girl on the other side of the ring, gorgeous in a very unsubtle way, hair in a complicated set of braids, her eyes full of fear that Jawn's convinced is the same kind of fear currently turning his own blood into ice. They lock gazes for a second or two, briefly united in misery of watching their loved ones willingly walk into a world of pain.

The fight is on. 

In the beginning Awsten keeps ducking, avoiding the punches, dancing circles around the other man with a shiny smile on his face. When he finally takes a hit to his shoulder, then chest, the smile doesn't quite waver. He’s had worse. Jawn knows that.

It lasts a couple more minutes. Jawn wants to close his eyes so badly, but it's impossible; Awsten's entrancing. It takes some getting used to, but he looks nearly comfortable in the ring, finally landing punches of his own, the big beefy man swaying on his legs, more and more annoyed with the spry, highlighter-haired twig of a boy with a mean right hook. Jawn realizes the obvious truth then: the big man’s on drugs. Not only that - he’s drugged out of his mind, most likely steroids mixed with morphine or something even harder, and Awsten was right from the start.

He can win this with one hand tied behind his back.

When a punch eventually lands on Awsten's face, Jawn groans, feeling like he’s the one who’s been hit. There’s blood now, it’s leaking down Awsten’s chin from his lip that seems to be split, but it’s nothing to him, it’s like it gives him more fuel to go totally apeshit on the other guy. Where is all that coming from Jawn doesn’t know, but the live band starts playing louder and louder, the music swelling into a disturbingly noisy crescendo as Awsten lands one punch after another, the girl on the other side of the ring biting her knuckles, her meat mountain of a man stumbling forward onto Awsten, blindly grabbing for the rosary on his neck right before hitting the floor with a dull thud.

Beads from the rosary scatter on the floor. The crowd is screaming in excitement. Awsten’s lip is bleeding as he takes a look around, wiping the blood on the sleeve of the ridiculous pink robe, and raises a victorious fist in the air.

Some days end more surrealistically than others, Jawn’s thinking as Awsten throws himself into his arms, fresh off the ring, all blood, sweat and a small fortune he just earned, breathing shallow like there's not nearly enough air in his lungs.

*

The thing is, they let their guard down. Jawn blames himself for that after, a little pointlessly, because he can't turn back time. But the guilt stays with him.

This stroke of luck, this absolutely silly, exhilarating victory goes to their heads. They run out of the venue and into the street, Awsten wearing regular clothes again, wedding band back on, his bank account now with an added value of a good couple thousand, and Jawn can't help but push the other man against the smooth concrete wall and kiss him breathless. Awsten goes along with it, laughing and bleeding into the kiss, clinging onto Jawn with hands in his hair and it's a little bit like they're in a movie, an old one, with actual actors instead of holograms.

The dizzy feeling lasts until they climb the motorcycle, Jawn starting the machine like always but their path out of the back alley is blocked, three menacing, wide-shouldered men with masked faces just standing there, and these kind of people never deliver good news; the only thing they deliver is pain. But it’s still fine, they can drive away, with enough speed and skill they can try to escape even bullets.

It’s fine - until Jawn realizes Awsten’s not there, behind him on the motorcycle. He’s halfway across the alley, approaching the men like there’s something he can gain from that, like he can somehow win like he won his MMA fight.

He can’t. It’s not a peril of the same caliber. Not even close. The boy’s just a stupid daredevil.

Jawn doesn’t have enough time to as much as yell out a warning before there’s a gunshot, a pained grunt where a scream should be, and the men are gone as quickly as they had appeared.

The rest of the night is remembered by Jawn through a thick haze of sick, sick adrenaline, and so much fear.

He never wished he had a car as bad as in this moment. He doesn’t though, so he makes do with what he has - his arms. Awsten’s standing up, but swaying on his legs, disoriented and growing weak, so Jawn leaves the bike behind, scoops him up, struggling with the weight for a second, but quickly gaining balance. He’s no doctor and no nurse, but he knows you gotta apply pressure to the wound, and his hands are busy with carrying Awsten. The bullet must be lodged somewhere in the flesh between Awsten’s collarbone and his shoulder.

“Awsten? Hey, baby, are you with me? Press your hand to the wound and hold it there, okay? Press as hard as you can.”

Awsten doesn’t reply in any way other than a quiet moan, but he presses on the wound until blood’s leaking out between his fingers, until his head tips back, another streak of blood, already dried up, running down his neck from his split lip. His body in Jawn’s arms becomes heavier as he loses consciousness.

They never should have come here.

Awsten might have won the fight fair and square, but he shouldn’t have. He should have lost it. Mobs don’t take lightly when random newcomers step on their turf, and this is what they just did. Maybe they have money now, but they also have a target on their backs, at least Awsten does, a shiny target blinking red from far away. 

They can never show face around here again. Jawn has no idea how he’s going to get his motorcycle back. He probably won’t. That doesn’t matter much right now.

Jawn carries Awsten along one street after another, the advertisement screens on skyscrapers flashing breaking news at him. _PRIME MINISTER’S WIFE CAUGHT CHEATING_ , the letters flash as he recognizes a photo he took a couple of weeks ago and turns away immediately, the pang of guilt within him growing stronger. He tries to walk faster, blood from Awsten’s shoulder dripping down his leather pants, but he doesn’t have any energy left within him.

No one stops them. No one notices them. No one tries to help.

“Please stay with me. Please stay. I can’t make it without you, not anymore. Please.”

Jawn remembers the rosary, Awsten’s good luck charm, ripped to pieces in the ring, beads rolling everywhere. He bites down on his lower lip, heaving for breaths in effort.

The neon sign above the 24/7 free clinic is the oasis among the city’s desert.

*

The sirens are roaring outside and the air smells of fumes, just like every night, so Jawn closes the window. Awsten needs sleep; sleep’s the best medicine.

Recovery takes time, and time’s not necessarily what they have enough of. Mornings have been difficult lately, Jawn waking up strangled by fear, uncertain of their fate, their safety, even with Awsten not leaving the apartment due to the slowly healing wound.

Before, they wanted to go on a road trip. Now, it seems to Jawn like they need to escape, run away from the endless city that binds them to itself, taints their blood, closes their eyes to what it doesn't want them to see.

Awsten keeps telling him he’s wrong, that nothing is gonna happen and that paranoia is only gonna exhaust him. But Awsten’s also on an ample daily dose of morphine, so maybe he shouldn’t really be listened to.

Jawn will work this out. It’s what he always does, doesn’t he? 

Awsten’s buried beneath a pile of sheets and blankets, having complained that it’s cold before, so Jawn just kept throwing more and more blankets at him until they ran out. He’s asleep now, or at least looks like it, eyes closed and breath even, a couple fading bruises on his face as reminders of the fight he won.

By fate or by coincidence, by God or Satan, Awsten was put in Jawn’s path. He was placed amid the chaos to create an even bigger chaos, but also provide Jawn with a peace of mind, an almost nonsensical semblance of stability, something to make the world make sense.

If they have to spend the rest of their lives on the run, so be it.

Jawn pushes the highlighter green hair off Awsten’s forehead and the other man grabs his hand, awake after all.

“Have you been worrying again?” he asks, pulling Jawn in so they’re lying together, just a breath away from each other.

“A little,” Jawn admits, heart pounding like he just ran a half marathon. It hasn't stopped pounding ever since those hours at the free clinic spent wondering if Awsten is gonna come out of surgery alive.

“No need,” Awsten yawns and places Jawn’s palm on top of his chest, inches below where the wound is tightly bandaged. Another day is going to end soon, another night will fall and another morning will wake them up with more noise and more smoke and more fear, but it doesn’t really matter, because Jawn gets to feel the warmth of Awsten’s hand on top of his, the rhythmic beating of his heart, the tender skin of the insides of his wrists. “You don’t ever have to worry about anything again. You have me.” 

(Fade to black, slower this time)


End file.
